Welcome to Mike Ferry TV. Hard to believe it’s the 1st week of July. Where did the first 6 months go? A lot of crazy times for everybody. Interestingly enough, a lot of people did very well selling Real Estate. A lot of people had a hard time. Let’s make sure the second half of the year is good for you.

So, as I often do, I’ll take a look at different parts of what you and I have to do each day to succeed in Real Estate and talk about them … and I’m going to take a few minutes today and do that same thing with everybody on Mike Ferry TV. You know, if you look at what we refer to as “The Mike Ferry Sales System,” it’s a series of thoughts, words, events, actions that a Real Estate person should follow, could follow, and if they do follow, is probably going to have … in almost every case … very good results … and a lot of that depends upon the attitude of the individual, of course. I’m assuming that each of you that would be watching Mike Ferry TV maintain a good, positive, solid attitude … as difficult as that is at certain times.

So let’s take a look. The number one thing we talk about in the Mike Ferry Sales System is the ability to manage your time … and in the webinars that I’ve been doing for Brokers all over the country since, really, March 31st … April 1st … I talk about the fact that if we could get every Real Estate person, like yourself, to actually put in 3 highly effective, highly efficient hours of work per day, everybody’s production would be fine. Now, you’re going to have to decide what you’re going to do during those 3 hours, of course, but if you’re thinking about the fact that you truly want to do a good job for your clients … if you’re thinking about the fact that you want to do a good job for yourself and your family … you know what you’re supposed to be doing in terms of time management. Time management, of course, is a very important part.

See, the challenge, as we talk all the time, is the fact that we’re independent contractors … that being independent contractors, you know, if you don’t do anything for a day or so, there’s nobody standing over you and pointing their finger. It’s not like you have an hourly wage of 20 or 30 dollars an hour coming from your Real Estate Broker or boss and that Broker is, of course, telling you, “you better do this or else.” That’s not our business. Our business is up to us 100%. Therefore, managing our time ourselves is up to us 100%.

The second part of this process, of course, is lead generation … and so much of that today revolves around your database … Past Clients/Centers of Influence. I’ve been telling everybody now for the last 4 months that if you’re going to call your database, you need to talk to all your Past Clients probably every 60 to 90 days. Why? Because our job is to reassure them, to make them comfortable with the fact that the Real Estate world is okay … because the Real Estate world is okay. There’s no question about it.

The number of transactions being done is very strong in almost all parts of North America today. But, inside your database, besides your Past Clients, of course, are your Centers of Influence … and those are your long-term referral clients. So, therefore, keeping them informed … keeping them with market updates, market knowledge, neighborhood reports, keeping them aware of what’s going on in the market … when they do have a referral or decide to come back and buy and sell, they come back to you. So you really have to look each day at what you’re going to do for lead generation/prospecting/talk to people because that is a vital part … because it’s either that or you’re going to run ads, buy leads off the internet, etc. and that gets very expensive and the return is not always as good as you think it would be.

The third part of the Mike Ferry System, of course, is your lead follow-up … and that is, today, a little different than it was in January and February. Today we’re saying you have Bucket “A,” and that is all the people that have the desire, the need, the motivation, the ability to buy or sell something now … and there’s a lot of people in the market, especially a lot of Buyers that are in the market looking for a home. So, Bucket “A” are those people you follow up. You have to be very strong, you have to be very aggressive. And, of course, I know some of you say, “Well, it’s not my style to be aggressive.” Well, in this case, if you’re not contacting these Bucket “A” leads that want to do something now, there’s a good chance somebody else is contacting them.

Then, of course, the question is … How many transactions do you want to lose before you probably start calling those people on a regular basis? But, Bucket “B” are those people that are waiting … and, of course, there’s always going to be people that are waiting and have a good, solid excuse as to why they should wait … and this virus, this pandemic, is a very valid … very, very real excuse on why people should wait. So, I’m sure you’re hearing, “When this is over, I’m going to buy or sell.” Well, those are the same people that you have to follow up with every 7 to 10 days. Again, market reports … neighborhood updates, etc. You know, understanding that these people need to know what’s going on to feel comfortable coming back into the market with you. They’re going to come back into the market at some point. We know they’re going to do something, we just want them to do it with you. They’re going to do it with the person that they’ve had the most communication with. We want you to be their person.

Obviously step four is prequalifying … Buyer or Seller. And what we’re looking for there is the motivation. You know, what is their desire to do something now or in the very near future? But prequalifying, as you heard me say, is a normal part of every business, every industry. Nobody in business that is trying to move their goods and services to a prospect who becomes a client is going to be able to do that without the prequalifying process. Everything from the doctor to the pilot … to the accountant …. to the lawyer … to a professional Real Estate person is going to ask a lot of questions to determine the needs of the person they’re talking to.

Next, step five is the listing presentation … and, of course, today, you have to think about doing that listing presentation virtually, possibly on Zoom or one of these types of devices … and the reason for that, of course, is you have to get comfortable knowing that even though the majority of people are not being affected by this particular virus, everybody has the fear that that virus could come into their home … or if they get into a car with you could be transferred to them if by chance you were to have it … or had somebody in your car that did have that virus at some time. So, the fear is always going to be there.

So the virtual side of learning how to present virtually becomes very important. Doing your listing presentation role-play on Zoom is going to allow you to see not only what you look like, but what the person you’re role-playing with sees and how they respond to your questions, comments and concerns. Practicing your listing presentation … vitally important.

Number six is showing property … and because we do show property a lot, as much as we’d like to think we’re all Listing Agents. Again, the abundance of Buyers in the market is very, very strong. With the strength of the Buyers in the market and the obvious lack of good inventory to sell, our ability to show property, our ability to prequalify the Buyer, to show them property virtually and/or live at a house is very important … because it’s not a matter of saying, “Well, I hope you like it,” it’s a matter of saying … or asking questions that will induce them to mentally move into that house. And if the house is the right house, then they can make a decision to buy. If it’s the wrong house, you listen to their responses so you can find the right house for them.

Next is handling objections … and as you’ve heard me say for years … I was very lucky. My Broker, Pat McVay, said, “There’s only a handful of objections you’re ever going to get. Why don’t you learn the answer?” Because all the Sellers, all the Buyers give the same objections all the time. You see, it’s not like Buyers and Sellers are going to seminars and being taught new objections to get Real Estate people. That is not the case at all. Buyers and Sellers are simply responding to the conversation and communication they’re having with their Real Estate Agent during the presentation time of either listing or showing the home. So having a response that’s short, to the point, that is understandable, is very important. See, if we don’t know how to respond … if we hesitate, that opens the door for them, of course, to give you more objections as the process continues.

Closing the sale … and, of course, you’ve heard me say for years that closing is nothing more than a natural ending to a good presentation. If you’re done your job the way it should be done, the close is not a complicated issue. It only becomes complicated or uncomfortable when you really don’t know what their motivation is. If you don’t know what they’re trying to accomplish, then it becomes very uncomfortable to ask them to sign a contract. Or, if you’ve mumbled and stumbled through your presentation and hemming and hawing and not confident in what you’re saying, then, of course, it’s going to be hard to close. But if you make a good professional presentation and you have a script to follow and you follow that script, which leads the Buyer or Seller to a natural ending, then, of course, asking them to sign is just simply part of the process.

The next part, number nine, in the whole Mike Ferry Sales System, of course, is the administration of the transaction. They have to be taken care … mortgage, escrow, title, home inspections, etc., etc. are all part of the process. Your allotting time back on number one … time management … allotting time of an hour, hour-and-a-half per day, for the admin of your transactions is vitally important. Your communication with Buyers and Sellers and the other agents in the transactions … your communication with the mortgage, with the title, etc. is important to the process of the transaction.

So the administration of a transaction is important. If you’re fortunate enough to work with a Brokerage that has a transaction coordinator, which is, I think, a very smart thing for you to work with, take advantage of that … use that transaction coordinator.

But the hard part of the Mike Ferry Sales System is step 10 … and that is starting over again each day at number 1, which is managing your time in a very effective manner. So, what I would like you to do is watch this particular message a couple of times … give it some serious thought … obviously identify where you have a lot of strength in which of these categories … probably many of them … and where you have some weakness … and then let’s work in the month of July on strengthening the weakness so your overall capabilities improve, your confidence goes up, and, of course, you have more production. The ones we have to key in are just numbers 1 through 10. That’s the vital part of the whole process.

So it looks like July … August … September are going to be strong Real Estate months. I’m sorry to say that there’s still a lot of agents that haven’t reactivated and came back in the market since this pandemic started. It’s been a tough time. There’s no question. There’s anybody that says home isolation was a lot of fun probably was not paying attention to home isolation. It’s been a real challenge for everyone, but you have to understand that the Buyers are back in the market, Sellers are back in the market … good agents like you are back in the market. I look forward to talking to you next week. Have a great week.

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Mike Ferry is the global leader in real estate coaching and training. Watch Mike each week as he discusses a variety of topics to help real estate agents and brokers. Grow your real estate business by improving your mindset, developing your skills and creating a plan of action to increase your production!